The Name I Have for God
by bethel
Summary: There are millions of names for God...but which one can I use?


The Name I Have for God:  
  
There's a lot of them that I've tried over the years...Dad, Daddy, Heavenly Father. Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior.

But somehow, 'Daddy' never seemed adequate to describe someone who didn't just pass on "Thunder Thighs" and a knack for numbers, but who formed my every part and designed an entire universe. And besides, I've already got a great daddy right here--why do I need another? To some people, God is that father figure who fills that place where their earthly father fell short. But I don't need a replacement pap--my original one's doing just fine. That might be why the 'Heavenly Father' thing never really caught on for me. My dad's great and all, but him in a halo isn't the kind of God I want to worship.

'Jesus Christ' worked for a while...until it got to sounding more like a swear than a venerated name. And why would I be on a first-name basis with the Creator of the Universe, anyway? Shouldn't I show more respect, a 'Mr. Jesus', at the very least? But more proper, formal titles didn't really seem right, either. 'Your Holiness' and 'Your Majesty' brought to mind images of 17th century monarchs, artificial in the way that royalty bred to bear a title and an heir, rather than a personality, are. Wasn't the point of Christ so that God wouldn't have to be addressed as a distant deity, but as one who dwelt within our very hearts?

Holy of Holies. Prince of Peace. King of Kings. Lord of my Life. Worship song staples roll easily off my tongue, but they roll easily off my heart too, disappearing into the land of the "in one ear, out the other" before I get the chance to think about what they mean, about what they reveal about the character of God.

Because it's that very thing--the character of God--that I so desperately seek to know and understand. All that I'm looking for is a word, just ONE LITTLE word, to capture what kind of character that is. What kind of God do I serve? Shouldn't I, who's spent the last sixteen years of my life teaching Sunday School and memorizing Bible verses, be able to answer that? And yet every epithet I try to apply falls hopelessly short of the utter majesty and goodness and grace of the one who's loved me from the beginnging of time. I'm supposed to be a writer, lauded for my way with words, but for the God who is the most potent aspect of my life, I can find no name.

And yet...I wonder. I wonder if, as I've come to believe, there's not some internal rhyme or transcending reason to this, as in everything. After all, isn't God supposed to be larger-than-life, holy, perfect? Isn't He the one who epitomizes all those things which are good, those things which are to be emulated, as well as those which not one of us has a prayer of ever achieving? And so--as frustrating as it is to admit--I guess I'm sort of glad that silly old me hasn't the vocabulary, nor the wisdom, to find one perfect word to describe God. I mean, I don't really know if I'd really want to worship the kind of God who's shallow enough for me to completely understand. I mean, I've got enough trouble with comma splices and the quadratic equation; I'm gonna have to humble myself here a bit, but just maybe there's the possibility that the complexities of the Creator of the Universe extend just a little beyond what my human mind can easily grasp.

And maybe that's the point. Instead of pigeonholing God into some precut cardboard conception, maybe we're supposed to spend this life going deeper, finding more and more out about His character and, as we use His perfect template to further develop our own characters, become more like Him.

A slightly preachy tidbit: Faith is trusting all you know of yourself to all you know of God. Then to grow in faith is a twofold--no, a threefold--accomplishment. It means that you've matured as an individual and "discovered" more about who you are; you've sought out the nature of God and have discovered more about who He is; and you've made the conscious choice to intensify the relationship between Yourself and God. 


End file.
